


Living the American Dream...Yeah Right

by CanineR7A7



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Carolina did not have a good childhood, I don't know exactly when this is set, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Other, Past Gang-life, Past Murder, Past manipulation, Protective OC, Texas is not an AI, Texas' name is Allison but she's not related to Carolina, There are multiple projects, because FUCK THAT, heavily AU, mentioned Child Soldiers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-19
Updated: 2018-07-19
Packaged: 2019-06-12 22:20:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15349983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CanineR7A7/pseuds/CanineR7A7
Summary: Life for Carolina is thrown off track when Project Freelancer finds a figure from her past. When a long-thought-dead enemy returns, she's going to have to rely on a team who doesn't know the secrets she hides and a man who's so similar yet so different to the one she grew up with.





	1. Chapter 1

There was an unfamiliar ruckus in the base, but that wasn’t really surprising, after all it wasn’t everyday they found a wounded soldier that wasn’t one of theirs, much less one who seemed to have been going through the same process as them. Against protocol, all fifty of them had gathered in the largest lab the facility had to offer, watching as the still-armoured figure began to wakeup; there was something familiar about them, Carolina thought as the black and silver warrior helmet glanced around at them. One of the scientists stepped forward.

“What is your identification?” The soldier straightened at an all too familiar rate.

“Unit key CH1C490. Operative Chicago. Project Honour-Guard.” Carolina froze, she knew that voice.

“Your name?” The scientist asked, already requesting a file transfer.

“Anderson Lockwood.”


	2. Chapter 2

Carolina felt the air leaving her lungs, he was alive? Anderson was alive? They didn’t kill him? She didn’t even know she’d removed her helmet until the red visor locked on her.

“Carolina?” The man stood up, yanking the helmet from his head. She felt her eyes heat up when she noticed the familiar scar on his right temple.

“You’re alive?” His golden eyes searched her face, obviously trying to see if this was a trick.

“Last time I checked, yes.” He breathed out a laugh as he ran a hand through black strands, some of which were red now.

“I never thought I’d see you again.” He gained a dopey smile, unknowingly letting the light catch on the barely noticeable scar on his chin. His helmet clattered to the floor as he took a few shaky steps towards her, arm clutched tightly around his waist.

“Still don’t know you’re meant to let you wounds heal?” He barked out another laugh, not seeming to mind the blood staining his arm. They were oblivious to the Freelancers behind them until they heard South.

“Wait! You two know each other?” The two turned to face the other Freelancers, Anderson sheepishly running a hand through his hair.

“Long story, if you don’t know it already well, not my place to say anything.” He pointedly ignored the glare Carolina sent him, the story wasn’t a pleasant one and neither of them liked to think about it, but these were Carolina’s people not his.

“Thanks Locke.” Her tone was void of all emotion, almost making him worry that they were back there, but they weren’t, she was safe, as safe as a soldier could be anyway.

“Sorry.” He hadn’t quite got rid of the smile, the one that she couldn’t stay mad at, the one she saw when he saved her – first from her home, then the others. She’d almost forgotten what it was like to have him this close.

“We’re still here.” She didn’t bother to check which Freelancer spoke; they’d be demanding answers now. Out of all of them – Texas included – Carolina was the one who had the most mystery regarding her past. She’s the one the others expected to keep a professional distance, yet here she was, talking to a complete stranger with a familiarity she’d never shown the others. She couldn’t explain that bond without talking about the past they shared, without opening up about things she’d only stopped dreaming about months ago.

“I’ll explain later, I don’t know when, just later.” She answered before nodding to the door, not checking to see if Anderson was coming, she knew he would be. They didn’t stop until they reached one of the unused offices; even then they frantically checked the room for bugs.

“Are you crazy?” She snarled at him, not needing to look to know he was pacing.

“Fuck. I’m sorry, I just, I didn’t think I’d ever see you again. Then, then I just forgot that maybe you wouldn’t have talked to anyone about it. That one’s on me.” She only sighed; she couldn’t fault him, not with this. She would’ve done the same thing if he was the one who found her.

“It’s fine. Now what are we going to do.” He halted his pacing and slumped against one of the chairs, the thing creaking under the weight of his armour.

“I take it running’s not an option anymore?” That damn smile was back, she shook her head, trying to keep her own smile hidden, even with the helmet on he’d be able to tell.

“I guess we just leave it at the later thing for now, hope they forget.” Not likely, neither of them would be left alone, not until their curiosity was satisfied.

“Or we could just tell them.” His tone was dark, the kind of dark that meant it was their best option but not the one he was happy with. She’d heard the tone often enough, even when she was never sure how much control she had.

“I take it you’ve only just got rid of the nightmares?” She needed to be sure, needed to know she wasn’t the only one who still heard the screams. He scoffed.

“They never stop; I’ll think they’re gone only to wake up hoping I won’t see a blood stain. I wish I’d never brought you there, ya know. I don’t regret getting you away from your old-man but-“ He trailed off with a sigh, after all this time he still worried about her first.

“So, hope they forget?” It was enough to startle a laugh out of him, Carolina counted that as a win, he used to be full of laughter, maybe he still was.

“Hope they forget.” He reaches a hand to a pouch on his belt and the cigarette he pulls from it is all too familiar. She remembered when they were younger, when they’d meet up on some roof and smoke one each. He smiled, seemingly knowing what she was thinking.

“Lighter’s out of gas and I missed the supply window.” He informed her when he made no move to light it, a few minutes passed before he put it back.

“One of the others, York, he has a lighter. I’m sure he has some replacement gas.” His smile looked more real then; they both replaced their helmets, returning to a professional mind-set that had been drilled into them long ago.

“Lead the way Carolina.” And it was so strange, hearing him tell her to take the lead, when they’d previously marched as equals.

“Cover my back Chicago.” That was strange too; he’d had his alias long before he became a soldier, an actual soldier. But to her, he’d been Anderson, then just Locke. But if there was even a chance that they could get the others to leave them alone, they’d have to be professional, telling them to leave it would only make them more curious.


	3. Chapter 3

It was surprising that the Director was allowing a soldier from another project to free-roam, especially since he knew who Anderson Lockwood was; he’d made his distaste clear enough from the start. Chicago didn’t question it; he knew all too well that poking at an issue would only make it worse. The others were curious, they probably thought they were being clever whenever they trailed him and Carolina, but he knew better, they hadn’t experienced their kind before.

“So what’s the deal with you and the Boss.” The one they called North asked as he dropped onto the seat opposite him.

“Which one?” He quirked a brow, North gave him an _are you kidding me?_ Look.

“Carolina.” Chicago sighed, he really didn’t want to have the discussion with any of them, guess he’d have to make it clear they didn’t want them to know.

“Childhood friends, shit happened, we thought each other was dead. That’s all you’re getting.” He purposely added a growl to his voice, the growl that most people knew meant to drop the subject, clearly the Freelancers hadn’t been exposed to it.

“That seemed more than childhood friends.” Chicago yanked his helmet off, allowing his frustration to show.

“There’s some shit neither of us like speaking about, essentially the entirety of our past, there’s a reason for that.” He watched as his words sunk in, North nodded seriously before standing.

“I get not wanting to talk about stuff, if what you went through is that bad, maybe talking to someone would help. Talking to someone who wasn’t involved, but that’s your choice.” Chicago stood as well, placing a hand on the other man’s shoulder.

“Look, its Carolina’s call to make. I don’t want to talk about that shit either, but you’re her people, not mine. When everything’s said and done she’s the one who still has to face you guys, not me unless the project I’m involved with hands me over to the guy in charge.” North nodded again, seemingly able to understand his reasoning, the guy left the room and Chicago allowed his spine to relax. He hoped convincing the others was that easy.


	4. Chapter 4

Chicago’s wound had only healed a few days before the box appeared, there was nothing unusual about it – disregarding its sudden appearance – so many people just shrugged it off as someone forgetting to haul it off to storage. Carolina and Chicago? Not as easily convinced. They stared at the label long and hard until they saw it, the insignia tattooed on their left palms.

“Why are you so wound up by a box?” South rolled her eyes when the two of them hadn’t moved for half an hour, they didn’t hear her, she furrowed her brow as she watched them. If Carolina hadn’t heard her then this was serious.

“You don’t think-?” Chicago trailed off as he glanced at his old friend.

“After all this time? Surely not.” She replied, left hand shaking slightly at the possibility, a light shone from inside and they watched as the cardboard burned to ashes. Too focused on the device now in front of them to notice the others had crowded in behind them. The screen flickered on, revealing a figure that looked more mechanical than human, but there was no mistaking who he was.

“Chicago, Unit C470L1N4.” Both of them stiffened, Chicago forcefully shutting his eyes.

“You didn’t really think you would escape me did you? Didn’t think you’d seen the last of me?” The others exchanged glances, beginning to understand why Carolina hadn’t said anything.

“I have to say I wasn’t expecting to see you again so soon, not after our last meeting.” The tremors in Carolina’s hand worsened.

“But I’m glad to see you’re both still alive. Such a shame I’ll have to remind you of your roles.” His tone sent a shiver down everyone’s spines.

“Initiate protocol full refresh, activation sequence 193-“ Chicago sent the device flying into the far wall, destroying it before the sequence could finish but the damage had been done. Carolina dropped to the floor clutching her head with one hand as though she was trying to crush her skull. Chicago dropped to his knees and grabbed her shoulders.

“Your name is Carolina, you’re a person not his drone. You’re a Freelancer, a soldier, a real soldier. He doesn’t control you, not anymore, not ever, I won’t let him.” It was clear the sequence had affected him as well, but they couldn’t say how much.

“What’s my name?”

“Anderson Lockwood.” She yelled out, obviously in pain from something they couldn’t see.

“No, the name you gave me.”

“Locke.” He moved one of his hands to the back of her head.

“Where and when did we meet?”

“My house, five days after versary.” None of them knew what versary meant but Chicago seemed to understand.

“Okay, good. How many?” She shakily held up a hand, all fingers extended.

“Good, good.” Chicago breathed out when the attack subsided, carefully moving so that Carolina’s head was perched on his shoulder.

“He’s not here, he can’t control us anymore, can’t control you anymore.” He moved his arm around her shoulders.

“I thought it’d stopped.” She breathed out shakily; he tightened his hold and rested his forehead against the top of her head.

“I know, you did so well.” He sighed.

“I’m sorry, if I knew he would do that to you I would never have gotten you involved.” He moved away only for her hand to reach for the scar on his temple.

“You didn’t know, he had you controlled as well.” They both rose to their feet, freezing when they noticed the others were watching them.

“What the fuck was that?”


	5. Chapter 5

 “So, I take it we can’t just pretend that didn’t actually happen and move on?” Chicago blurted as soon as they entered the training room. Carolina had headed over to a crate in one of the corners leaving him to fill them in.

“Yeah, that’s not happening.” York yelled with a ferocity that wasn’t associated with him, Chicago glanced at Carolina before sighing.

“How much do you already know?” He waited for a few seconds before realising they truly knew nothing.

“This is gonna take a while.” He stated as he took a seat on the floor, the others followed his example and watched as he thought about his words.

“Carolina didn’t have the best childhood, her teenage years? Probably the definition of a life traumatising enough to end with suicide.” The air felt heavier at his opening, Chicago himself had to take a shuddering breath.

“Carolina’s parents were Leonard and Allison Church.” Everyone froze at the knowledge Carolina was related to the Director.

“Her mother was in the military and died on one of her missions. Church, he became severely depressed, and dangerous.” The implications of that statement were not pleasant.

“I met Carolina when we were both thirteen; at that point, things were already pretty bad. I got her out of there and she stayed at my place until she was well enough to leave. There was a group I was part of, called themselves Evolution.” He fisted his hand and slammed it against the ground.

“They claimed to be the future of mankind, a future where we wouldn’t have to worry about war, or anything. I’d already been a member since I was a child cause my parents had believed in it until they died. If I’d known what they were really doing I would’ve kept Carolina far away from them.” The self-hatred that laced his tone was troubling.

“These guys were good at making you trust them. They told me that they were my family now, that they’d never abandon me. They told Carolina that they’d never let the bastard hurt her again, foolishly, we both believed them.” Some of them were starting to regret wanting answers.

“Before Carolina joined, they treated me like the other kids, never got us to do any work. Only told us to stay out of the way and have fun. After she was _initiated_ they started to give the two of us work to do.” This was not looking good, South furrowed her brow.

“Initiated?” He removed his left armour glove, revealing a metal hand with a strange symbol engraved on the palm.

“The metal hand’s not part of it, I got that later. They tattooed this mark into our hands, marked us as one of them. I had mine replaced when I got the hand, wanted to remember how far I’d come since then.” That made sense, kind of.

“The jobs were simple at first, just run around and trade stuff between the basecamp and the smaller ones around the city. Then it became steadily worse, drug smuggling, theft, assault, interrogation work. Until they promoted us to the harder stuff.” He closed his eyes, looking as though he was fighting off tears.

“We’d become desensitised to that shit over time, hell we’d both killed someone without feeling a shred of remorse for it.” That didn’t sound good, as soldiers it was something they all got used to, but being desensitised to it before you were nineteen at least?

“We were so damn happy; finally we’d be getting the respect neither of us had ever known. At least, that’s what we thought would happen.” He sighed angrily, trigger finger twitching.

“The night before, I was walking around the camp, wanted to clear my head for a bit. Then I heard them, turns out they were planning on turning us into drones, murderers who only answered to them.” One of them started retching but he couldn’t be sure which one.

“I couldn’t let that happen, I’d told Carolina they cared about us, I wasn’t going to let them hurt her. I told her what I heard and we ran, problem was, they knew I was listening and they were quicker.” York closed his eyes; he could imagine what happened to them.

“They got us good. I’d already been with the group for a long time so they put something in my brain, something that would alter my memories. They named me Chicago then and there, put me in charge of a group of drones and I didn’t know anything different.” Maine and Texas could understand that, they’d both been manipulated away from the others in the past, though the methods used were completely different.

“And Carolina?” York asked hesitantly, the others watched as Chicago pulled the lone cigarette from his pouch and just began rolling it between his fingers.

“They fucked her up, made her into one of the drones I was in charge of. Took her name and made sure she only responded to C470L1N4, she was a mindless killing machine, they – I – gave her a target and she’d shoot until I either called her off or it stopped moving. Me, I loved it, because that’s what they wanted.” Everyone’s blood ran cold, their leader? Little more than a mindless drone? Now her self-sacrificial shit on the field made sense.

“That shit was never built to last permanently, the conditioning started to break down. Wasn’t too noticeable at first, we started to stand a lot closer than the others, she started to act more human and my memories started to sort themselves out. As you can probably imagine, we were both horrified at what we’d done.” That must have been terrible, regaining control only to realise what they’d made you do.

“We played along for a while, wasn’t too sure whether we were in control or just dreaming for a long time. Either way we still killed people, we were too used to it.” Soldiers before their time, more things were starting to add up.

“Eventually we figured out who the ring leader was, some douche named Cartwright. We tracked him down and demanded answers, not that we got any. It turned into a fight, and by fight I mean radicalist gang boss trying to get away from two very angry, very skilled _murderers._ He must’ve lost at least three quarters of his blood, and we shot him at the same time when he’d suffered enough, both blasting an eye each.” Well that was gruesome, the Freelancers were suddenly glad they hadn’t had anything to eat.

“We come out the building and we’re surrounded by police, Cartwright’s dead so we can’t just say he was a crime lord when it was our faces that were doing all the killing. They take us to separate prisons, but our trials were held at the same place. It was my fault Carolina got involved with them in the first place so I took the fall for everything. Her dad got his head out his arse and helped her get out of it all. I was shipped off to the military and never saw Carolina again.” There was a tense silence while the team digested everything they heard, eventually CT spoke up.

“You said you were part of Project Honour-Guard, what’s all that about?” He seemed to consider how much to tell her.

“A while after we were sentenced, the truth came out, I don’t know if we were ever pardoned. Even if we were it would’ve only been Carolina since I was doing that shit willingly…mostly.” Not one soldier in the room believed that but they wouldn’t start that argument until they were more familiar with Chicago.

“UNSC figured Evolution had larger numbers than I thought, Project Honour-Guard, we’re responsible for dealing with them. Helping the drones become people again and taking the bosses down.” His job certainly sounded ideal for him.

“How many?” None of them had noticed Carolina walk over until she uttered those words.

“Ten. Three of them are in my unit now. Two of them just wanted a fresh start, gave ‘em some cash, they share a farmhouse now. One of them, the implant messed him up good, poor sod can’t even remember his own name, we had to send him to a psychiatric facility. The other four didn’t make it, two of them had the hardware so deeply rooted they’d become reliant on it, died as soon as it was removed. The other two, they asked me to end it, couldn’t live knowing what they’d done.” She rested a hand on his shoulder until the faraway look faded. He stood up, not looking anyone in the eye.

“I should probably go and let command know Cartwright’s back.” He sighed as he began the walk to the communications room. Halting when he heard Carolina’s voice.

“I’m coming with you.”


	6. Chapter 6

The other Freelancers were gathered in the mess-hall when they returned, all of them rising to their feet.

“How did it go?” Wash asked.

“Depending on how you look at it, we’ve got good news and bad news.” The two of them removed their helmets and sat down at the crowded table.

“Good news is that they’re looking for Cartwright now, they theorise that once he’s found they’ll be able to free the other drones no problem.” That was good, they still didn’t know the full details of what being a drone meant, but it clearly messed people up more than they could ever know.

“Bad news, now they know who Carolina is, they’re trying to get her transferred to Honour-Guard.” There was silence for a few moments before the yelling began, Chicago held up his hand.

“Look, their request is reasonable, she may not have had as much control as I did, but she still knows how Evolution works. I’m doing what I can for her to remain a Freelancer, either way they still want her to come in, even if it’s just to make sure the hardware is truly useless now.” They begrudgingly accepted that checking the hardware was a good idea, but they still weren’t happy with the chance that they’d lose Carolina.

“I thought you said the hardware wasn’t active anymore?” CT argued, Chicago sighed.

“And it’s not; at least I don’t think it is. Look, when I was transferred to Honour-Guard I had a scan, then surgery to get rid of it. The only good thing about the hardware is that it was purposely designed to keep the nightmares away so we’d still be functioning right. You can imagine how bad they were afterwards. The fact that Carolina even has nightmares should mean that the hardware has broken down enough to be useless. But we had to tell them about the video, and what the activation sequence caused, they just want to make sure it was her mind messing with her and not anything to do with the hardware.” That was actually reasonable.

“After that, well, it’ll take some time to figure out where Cartwright’s based now, he isn’t stupid enough to stay where we _killed_ him. Once that happens they’ll likely send me, Carolina and the other former-drones after him. Once that’s done, I’ll try and stop them from transferring Carolina over to Honour-Guard, but there’s no guaranty it’ll work.” York sighed, looks like that was as good as they’d get.


End file.
